


The King’s Road - Extra Scenes

by marmaladeSkies



Series: From Worse to Merely Bad [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Duscur Religion, Gen, Mercenaries, Original Character-centric, Tragedy of Duscur (Fire Emblem), Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27829135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmaladeSkies/pseuds/marmaladeSkies
Summary: Scenes, backstory, and other things I couldn’t fit intoThe King’s Road.Possibly also a few minifics set after the main fic, if my brain cooperates.
Series: From Worse to Merely Bad [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848643
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a Table of Contents page. Nothing flashy.

**1\. One Last Meeting** \- Demise has some things to make clear before leaving. Takes place during Chapter 7.

 **2\. Campfire Stories 1** \- Sawbones tells a Faerghan folk tale.


	2. 1. One Last Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demise has some things to make clear before leaving the group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Chapter 7. For those of you who are peeking here without having read the original fic, “Badger” refers to Dimitri.

Demise needed to have one last meeting with Cake and Hammer before she went off on this fool’s venture of hers and Badger’s. Being a mercenary was never a safe job, but most of the time the danger came from the _enemy._ If anything went wrong, she was likely to be killed by a prospective employer. There was a good chance she wasn’t going to be coming back from this, and she had a few words she wanted to say while she had the chance.

It only took a few moments to pull Cake, Hammer, and Songbird away from their duties and pull them behind a wagon for a private chat.

“Cake, how are our supplies?” she asked the man in question.

The quartermaster didn’t even bother looking at his tally sheet; he always had a good sense for what the company had on hand. “With our recent losses- not just the wounded, but some followers too- we have a lot more food than we would normally need. We can make it stretch up to four days if we have to. It depends on what we can forage. I don’t imagine we’ll be able to hunt much, with that fort chasing away any game.”

“What about fishing?” asked Hammer.

“Doubtful.” Even at the best of times, the King’s Grace was a dangerously fast-moving river at the bottom of a ravine. The spring snowmelt made it even _worse._

“If our plan goes through, can you last until the next caravan?” asked Demise.

“The way Fort Killian is staffed right now? They’ll have to resupply _often._ Worst case scenario, we tighten our belts a little.” Cake raised an eyebrow at her. “You already know this. What did you really call us for?”

Demise fingered the clasp of her cloak. It was made of hearth steel, the finest steel in the world and the only material worthy enough to hold arctic bear fur. In Duscur, bears were feared and revered in equal measure, and this was especially so for the snow white bears of the far north. Only a few people were allowed to hunt them. Her grandfather had been one of those people, and after inheriting the cloak from him she had never once let it leave her presence.

That is, until now. She took off the cloak and handed it to Songbird. “Three days,” she said. “If I don’t signal you in three days, assume I’m dead. Take care of this. If I’m killed, I’ll try to find it. You won’t have to track down my body.”

Songbird took it as delicately as if were made of the finest lace instead of heavy fur. She understood his trepidation- arctic bear fur was _sacred._ Most people never got to even see some, much less touch some. That an arctic bear cloak had ended up in a lowly mercenary band was like some kind of twisted joke.

(It _should_ have been a symbol of diplomacy through trade, but well. Things happened.)

“Hammer,” Demise continued. “I’m bequeathing it to you as a badge of office. _After_ my rites are sung, mind. I don’t want my ghost to stick to you.”

“You really think they’re going to kill you,” said Hammer. “But you’re doing this anyway.” She sighed. “You’re a crazy bastard, you know that?”

“My fuckup, my responsibility. But no, I’m not _that_ certain of it. Badger has proof he’d have sway over them, so the biggest risk is in getting across that river. This is just in case.”

Finally, she turned to Cake. “Keep an eye out for Hammer; I know some people think she’s too young to be a good captain. They’ll listen to you, though, so I’m leaving it to you to make sure no one resists her orders out of pure stubbornness.”

Cake gave her a short nod.

That was all Demise needed to take care of. She left the wagon for one last round around the camp to check up on her troops and see if Cairn was finished checking Potato’s shoes. It was time to get this fool’s errand started.


	3. 2. Campfire Stories 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sawbones tells a Faerghan folk tale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I write folk tales for fun and that somehow ended up mixing with my fanfic and turned into this? Hope you like it!

“Isn’t it Sawbones’ turn?” asked Hunter.

Sawbones snorted. “I’m a doctor, not a fighter. You won’t be hearing any tales of valor from me.”

“You’ve been around a while; you had to have done _something_ interesting.”

Sawbones raised an eyebrow at him. “You want interesting? Fine, you’ll get interesting. So a woman comes into my clinic complaining of abdominal-”

“Not the Rat Story!” shouted Cake from the next fire over. A few curious glances came his way.

“He asked for it!” Sawbones shouted back.

Bolt glanced between the two of them. “I don’t think I want to know. Look, don’t you have a... folktale or something?”

Sawbones thought for a moment. “Sure. Not I’m not the best storyteller, but...”

“Long before the saints existed, before the continent was first united, there were people in Fodlan who could turn into wolves. They were a proud people, fierce and strong, living in what would one day become the Sealed Forest. Each one had a piece of stone the size of a fist, of all shapes and forms. Some were carved to look like animals, some polished and smoothed, some engraved with images of the heavens. They guarded these carefully, for these stones held their ability to transform.”

“As time passed, the pride of the wolf clan turned into arrogance. Look at how strong they were, where humans were frail! Look at how fast they were, where humans had to rely on chariots! In those days, horses were too small and too weak to carry people on their backs. The wolf-form of the people of the Sealed Forest was far larger than them.”

“In their arrogance, the wolf clan declared that the fragile humans of Fodlan should declare allegiance to them, for were they not the most mighty of all? There could be no on else suitable to lead, they claimed. But humans are not wolves. They do not naturally obey the largest and strongest among them. And they do not like it when others try to take control.”

“In the ensuing war, a great many lives were lost. Fields were burned, livestock devoured. Entire tribes were destroyed. Orphans and the destitute cried out to the heavens for mercy.” 

“The Goddess saw this and wept. Her own chosen people, dying before her eyes! It was not long before sorrow turned to rage, and in her anger, she crafted a mighty curse and placed it into the heart of each and every one of the stones the wolf clan carried. From then on, whenever one of them transformed, they would lose their mind and lose sight of who was friend and who was foe. They rent and tore each other, their livestock, and even the very trees of the forest they called home. And through this the wolf clan destroyed themselves.”

“The few survivors, those who had realized what was happening and thrown their magic away before the curse could reach them, fled Fodlan. It is said that a few settled in Almyra, and a few in Albinea, but most went to Sreng. Even today, the Srengi despise Fodlani for what happened to them. And even today, people occasionally stumble across an ancient carved stone, buried and forgotten in a ruin or just lying out in the woods. The smart ones leave them alone. The stupid become cursed with madness.”

“And that’s where artifacts came from. And that’s why you never, ever touch one.”

“And that’s why we call foreigners wolves!” Snap interrupted cheerfully.

Bolt and Hunter both elbowed her in the side.


End file.
